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Installing and Dual-Booting Gentoo Linux From Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD For Thinkpad T400

Created Dec 18th, 2008

Summary:

This article explains how to install, configure, and dual-boot Gentoo Linux on a Thinkpad T400 using an Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD. We are using the Ubuntu LiveCD because the Thinkpad T400 features a sata CD/DVD drive which is not recognized by the Gentoo minimal install CD. By the end of the article, we'll cover all critical details for getting Gentoo up and running alongside Windows XP in a dual-boot configuration.

Introduction:

This guide was written as a resource to other Thinkpad T400 Gentoo users - as of this writing Google returns little information about running Gentoo on the T400, and Thinkwiki.org has no Gentoo specific information for this model. This guide relies heavily on the Gentoo Handbook, an excellent resources the Gentoo community makes available. While this article won't duplicate information from the handbook, it will highlight important differences and provide specific advice for the Thinkpad T400.

Procedures:

This article assumes you already have Windows installed on the T400 on a partition occupying the entire drive, you have burnt a copy of the Ubuntu 8.10 LiveCD, and you have a very basic knowledge of Linux. The process of installing Gentoo thru this method can be broken down into 4 sections. The headings below detail Freeing Disc Space, Preparing For Gentoo Installation, Configuring The Gentoo OS, and Gentoo Configuration File Examples.

Freeing Disc Space Using The Ubuntu Installer

Turn on the T400 and press F12 to select a boot device while the Lenovo logo is on the screen. Select your CD drive from the boot device list and the Ubuntu CD will take some time to load. Once its ready it prompts for your native language for the LiveCD interface. After selecting your language, choose "Install Ubuntu". The disc will proceed to load and automatically launch the Ubuntu installer. We will only be using the installer to resize the Windows partition to make room for Gentoo, so the options you choose are unimportant until you get to "Step 4 of 7 - Prepare Disc Space". At this screen we want to select "Guided - Resize and Use Free Space". We can then adjust the slider to shrink the Windows partition as we see fit, leaving enough space for our Gentoo partitions we'll create later. We can then click the forward button and confirm the prompt to proceed with writing the changes to disc. Once the resize is complete, we select cancel in the Ubuntu setup and confirm that we want to exit the installer. This drops you out of the installer program and into the Ubuntu LiveCD environment with the full Ubuntu Gnome interface.

Preparing For Gentoo Installation

At this point we want to switch to root and configure our Gentoo partitions. This will be done within the CLI via gterm, and the commands we issue are itemized and explained in the box below. Since we're in the Ubuntu Gnome interface, we can Press Ctrl+T to open a terminal window then proceed with the following commands.

Set the Ubuntu environments root password, this password is only temporary while in the LiveCD:

Switch user to root using the password you just created, so that we gain the admin rights necessary:

Note that the terminal prompt changes from $ to # indicating the change in rights to root access; now is a good time for the standard disclaimer. With great power comes great responsibility - with root access you have the ability to do anything you want. Once we mount the hard drive, this includes the potential to erase data on the drive. You want to ensure you are doing what you intend to and do not make mistakes when performing sensitive operations, such as formatting partitions. In respect of that, thru this terminal we are ready to continue on with setting up Gentoo following the handbook at Chapter4, "Preparing the Disks".

Configuring The Gentoo OS

Theres a slight difference in chapter 6 of the Handbook, when it comes time to mount the proc and dev filesystems the commands will be as follows since we're within a LiveCD environment:

You'll also want to pay attention when configuring grub in Chapter 10 of the Handbook. In that section you'll want to ensure you create an entry in grub.conf that points to your Windows installation. I followed the provided example and you'll find my grub.conf for reference below. Resizing the windows partition and configuring Grub is all thats necessary to prepare for dual-booting, so the rest of this guide will focus on getting Gentoo installed on the T400.

You will need to decide which version of the kernel you want to use, and which version of GCC you will run. I chose gentoo-sources-2.6.27-r5, because that kernel version enabled the Intel WifiLink 5300 AGN in my Thinkpad T400. I also chose GCC4.3, because that version of GCC supports "-march=core2", which provides optimizations specific to Core2Duo processors. Refer to the Gentoo GCC Upgrade Guide for comprehensive instructions on upgrading GCC, as well as my notes below for configuring /etc/make.conf using the proper CFLAGS.

I chose to run ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="~x86" which gives me bleeding edge software releases - for example, when I used portage to compile and install Gnome, the release date of that version was 3 days prior. Running ~x86 (unstable) will lead to some challenges unique to unstable/testing releases which you may not want to deal with - an alternative to doing this the way I chose to would be to use /etc/portage/package.mask to unmask the specific versions you need for certain packages, and set ACCEPT_KEYWORDS="x86" variable in /etc/make.conf which will give you a more stable base to work with. I'm also running baselayout2 (OpenRC) which changes where some basic file locations are, which lead to having to customize some scripts manually for VirtualBox to work fully - this is just one example of headaches which could be avoided by sticking with the stable branch.

With these items in mind, you can proceed thru the Gentoo handbook instructions to get a fully operational Gentoo Linux system.

Gentoo configuration file examples specific to the Lenovo T400 Thinkpad

In the boxes below are the configuration files specific to my system and the packages I use. Depending on the choices you make, you may want to change some of these settings but these can serve as an example of what works for me. Your mileage may vary so I'd be weary of copying these verbatim - the settings in /etc/make.conf effect how every package you emerge thru portage will be compiled, so this is important for customizing your system.

This is an example of my current /etc/make.conf. Note that the "-march=core2" CFLAGS setting can only be set after upgrading to GCC4.3, and prior to that the recommended safe setting for GCC4.1 is "-march=nocona" - that is what you will initially use for your CFLAGS setting. Once you have upgraded to GCC4.3, you will want to update the CFLAGS setting and recompile all packages on the system using "emerge -eav world". It's best to do this before installing other software packages - this will recompile your entire Gentoo system from source. Refer to the Gentoo GCC Upgrade Guide for comprehensive instructions on upgrading GCC.

This is an editted example of "/usr/src/linux/.config" for gentoo-sources-2.6.27-r5 on the Thinkpad T400. This shows all items enabled in my kernel; all commented lines have been removed. Wireless and discrete graphics acceleration on the T400 work with this config, however it has not been optimized. Thus its a good baseline config to get up and running, but there is a lot of room for improvement.

This is an example xorg.conf which was automatically created by following the instructions for installing X:

This is an example of the grub.conf I created to dual-boot Gentoo and Windows XP:

Conclusion:

Thru researching the components of the T400 and some trial and error, I uncovered the details above which got my T400 running Gentoo excellently. At the time I posted this article, there is no other website returned by Google dedicated to Gentoo on the T400 and I hope people find this useful. Questions and comments can be posted below.

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